


Waltz of the Flowers

by morphogenesis, zecretsantamods



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 04:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13139286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphogenesis/pseuds/morphogenesis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zecretsantamods/pseuds/zecretsantamods
Summary: In a future where Dio succeeded, a young Left clone befriends the leftover relic of his conquest as she challenges his notion of happiness.





	Waltz of the Flowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chessanator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chessanator/gifts).



> Happy Holidays! I really enjoyed writing this so thanks for your great prompts. Thank you ZS mods too!

Decades before his death, Brother described a sacred object: a living figure who thought and spoke but served like the golems of ancient lore, made in the image of the Dolorosa. The one who found and returned her to Free the Soul would be a hero.  
  
E-10, tenth of the fifth generation of Myrmidons (and he felt lucky to be so as he shared a number with the previous hero who returned the Dolorosa doll and vanquished a great enemy), had the privilege of caring for her. Or luck, as one brother put it snidely before immediately taking it back to avoid recrimination for jealousy, though he was right. E-10 was the most gifted with machines and the beastly tower that kept the Dolorosa doll alive and thinking was complex as could be.   
  
It stood in the room like a massive tree in a fairytale-themed room. Armored knights bearing greatswords flanked her golden birdcage throne. Murals of sleeping princesses and brave, foolish shepards and goose girls and villagers and dragons surrounded her. One wall was covered with a bursting verdant garden of tangled vines, grasses, and flowers.   
  
The doll slept often; she never waned nor waxed, asked for water or medicine. She hadn’t aged since she arrived well before E-10’s creation. She put herself to sleep, usually. Useful information about the facility she’d been rescued (no, someone would say if they heard him, you retrieve an object, you rescue a person) from was extracted long ago, and now she was a living relic that only special people like Myrmidons could visit for worship. If powered on, she could speak and move, and because he understood her complex electric brain better than anyone (pride, he’d be chastised) he could speak with her anytime he wished.  
  
She came awake like a wind-up doll, to use a metaphor he’d read once and had to look up to understand, sitting upright slowly and blinking as she raised her head. “Tyltyl?”  
  
“Luna.” He pulled on a chain around his neck and her birdcage pendant emerged from his shirt. Her eyes brightened noticeably when she saw it. “I’m here for more information.”  
  
She frowned but her eyes never left the pendant, like E-10 when another of his brothers was chosen to light the ceremonial candles before a service. Brother knew all thoughts, but Brother passed shortly after the conquest of Rhizome-9 (an achievement D-10 could never top and rode for the rest of his brief cloned life) and was not here to reveal E-10’s constant little mental rebellions. “Of course.”  
  
“…If I play your music first, would you tell me more about your old life?” He wound it up before she could answer, and the tinkling melody made her touch her trembling mouth, eyes closing as the song brought back memories she only spoke of if ordered or tempted. She swayed in her seat and rested only when the last note faded. He came forward and knelt before her cage, touching the bars. “So?”  
  
“What would you like to know this time?” She would tell him about her facility, that she wasn’t the only thinking machine her creator made, her creator…but never anything of the rescue or D-10.   
  
“…Did you ever ask why you were created?” He squeezed his knees and looked up into her confused face. “Is it any easier to understand your purpose when you were handmade by man?” E-10 supposed he was as well, but to be a machine with programmed thoughts must be simpler. Luna (she loved that name) would never have doubts.  
  
“No. To both questions. I did have a purpose.” She touched the spot where her necklace once hung. “But it was taken from me and I’m not sure why I’m here now.”  
  
E-10 didn’t know why either, or why she’d never told anyone he was the one who stole her sacred relic. She played her music box all the time at first, and the melody enchanted him so that he slipped it off over her head during repairs. She couldn’t shed tears, but the only way to describe her reaction to losing it was “weeping.” “Because you’re holy. You told me once that it was enough to exist in a place where you were loved.” He hated her answer, honestly. She could admit she wanted and she needed. For E-10, it was supposed to be enough to exist in service. Devotion was fulfillment, shared identity was being whole. He couldn’t want, though he did. He wanted to have secrets like the music box and these stolen moments with Luna, the Dolorosa, the idol.  
  
She hugged herself and shook her head. “Idolization isn’t love. Everyone worships me, but nobody looks at me and asks me how I feel.” What an odd concept, the desire for individual acknowledgement. How he craved praise for his technological skill or his neatness or his knowledge of canon. When she asked him to call her “Luna,” he initially hadn’t understood, but he knew he liked it when she named him.  
  
“Why does that matter?”  
  
“Because…” She shook her head. “Do you want to understand? Or do you just want more stories?”  
  
“Stories. And not the bluebird one.” She told that one often, stressing its message that happiness wasn’t true unless shared. She called him Tyltyl from that story, saying only that she liked to distinguish him from the others when he asked why.  
  
“Alright…hm.” She pushed an askew lock of hair behind her ear. Once, he watched her re-braid it, fascinated that she cared about such things. “Have you ever heard of Christmas?”   
  
“No.” She never wanted to hear the stories he did know: the parables of Brother, the end of the old age, and the era of tranquility. “Who is he?” Every story had a central figure, and usually it was Brother.  
  
“It was a celebration on Earth. It started as a way to honor the birth of a religious figure, but I like its later meaning better: that it was a time for gratitude. Peace on Earth and good will toward men.”  
  
“That’s every day here.”  
  
She looked toward the wall full of greenery she couldn’t touch, even though it was meant for her honor and pleasure. “Certainly. But the spirit of Christmas was for anyone, not just the saved here.” She folded her hands on her lap. “One of my favorite stories is about relearning the meaning of Christmas. It’s called ‘A Christmas Carol…’”   
  
Her story was difficult to picture, full of things like families and money and ghosts and parties. Truly fanciful, but he was drawn in by the ghosts and the way, time and again, Scrooge isolated himself in pursuit of his goal, learning almost too late that his selfish pursuit of wealth had withered and killed his belonging in his community. There was something to be said for the message that the wellbeing of others was far greater than your own; remove the trappings about pleasure and it could make a fine lesson for sermons.  
  
“So Scrooge decided he cared about others more than money?”   
  
She smiled and nodded. “He realized that others’ happiness made him happy, and that was the meaning of Christmas.” She pulled herself up by the bars, and tried to poke her face between them to look at him closely. “You don’t have to wait for three ghosts to visit, Tyltyl. You can choose that now.” Her hopeful, earnest gaze brought him to his feet. He turned away from her and took a few steps toward the plants. Reaching up, he plucked a few flowers from the carnations she’d been looking at, then turned back to her and offered them.   
  
She gasped and took them with weak fingers, kissing the blossoms. “Thank you.” She savored them like they were relics only she was allowed to handle, gently clutching them to her chest. When the cage door swung open a moment later, she startled and nearly dropped them. “What…?”  
  
“I can’t let you go,” he said quietly. “That’s not in my power.” He held the music box in his palm, admiring the shine and saturation it held after two centuries. The tiny bluebird inside always about to fly away but never leaving its perch. “But nobody has to know if you walk around in here, right?” He offered her a hand, and when she tentatively took it she was soft and warm like a human, her tiny feet alighting on the floor just like a bird. She flitted from her plants to the murals to the tower that kept her running, stroking it with an unreadable expression. He couldn’t understand why she wanted freedom so badly, but knowing that she wanted it was reason enough to grant her this moment. He turned on her music again and she stepped to it, spinning so her skirt and apron lifted with her, arms flung out.  
  
“I didn’t know… You don’t know how long you’ve been sitting until you stand up. What’s the date Tyltyl?” She paused when he told her. “That long?” She clutched her apron and looked back at the plants. “No wonder something this small feels wonderful. How did I survive in there for so long?” She grabbed the nearest pot, overflowing with a delicate fern, and hugged it. “I wish I could smell you. What does this smell like?”   
  
Suddenly he was face-first in the pot, his vision totally green and brown. Moisture touched his lips and the fern tickled his cheeks. He sniffed, nose twitching at the tickle, and then inhaled deeper. “Like dirt?” He had to rub some off his nose when she withdrew the pot.  
  
"That’s it?” She seemed disappointed. “The Doctor loved his garden. He could describe every plant in a new way.” She pet the fern before putting it back on the shelf. “I know they’re delicate, but could you please bring me an orchid next time? I miss them. I can still remember the orchids the Doctor grew one year.”  
  
E-10 looked away. “I don’t grow the plants. I’m not sure what you’re even talking about.”  
  
“I’ll describe them to you! Just please. I want an orchid.” She nodded to his chest. “And in exchange you can keep my music box forever.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yes! If it makes you happy, I can be happy for you.” He didn’t recognize her. She went from obedient doll to bouncing, happy woman just from stepping over a threshold. And all she demanded of him was a simple flower.   
  
“Okay. That’s the meaning of Christmas you talked about?”  
  
“I think so.” She leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “When doing good for someone else brings you joy—that’s Christmas.” She took his hand when he offered it again, smiling even as he lead her back to the cage and closed the door behind her. “Thank you, Tyltyl.”  
  
When had someone ever said that to him? How did you respond again? “Oh.”   
  
“Goodbye then.” She waved as he stepped back. “You’ll remember my orchid?”  
  
“I’ll bring it.” Even though he had no idea what one was. Christmas was apparently about doing things you didn’t understand because they meant the world to others. To have someone look on you like you were special. “Goodbye, Luna.”


End file.
